Is Fairuza Balk a Good Witch, or a Bad Witch?

This question is surprisingly appropriate. To begin with, one of Fairuza Balk’s first roles was as Dorothy in “Return to Oz”, an unofficial sequel to the classic Wizard of Oz movie. While Dorothy was not actually a witch, Fairuza Balk has since played both good and bad witches in movies.

In 1986, one year after Return to Oz, Fairuza Balk played Mildred Hubble in “The Worst Witch”. In this movie, Fairuza Balk plays a “good” witch, who is the worst of her class in witch school. I loved this movie as a kid and would watch it every Halloween (it aired annually on HBO).

To anyone watching this movie today, it would seem like a ripoff of Harry Potter, however, Harry Potter is the ripoff. This 1986 movie was based on a book written in 1974, more than two decades before the first Harry Potter book was written.

Ten years later, in 1996, Fairuza Balk once again plays the role of a witch. This time however she plays the evil witch Nancy in “The Craft”. The Craft is about four high school girls practicing witchcraft. Nancy and two of her friends try in vain to work magic but just can’t do it without a fourth witch, then a transfer student comes in and she just happens to be the daughter of a real witch. The “real” witch (player by Robin Tunney (Robin Tunney and Fairuza Balk in the same movie…. *fetches a mop to clean up all the drool*) …oops! Er…Anyway…..) decides to be a good witch, but the other three turn bad (with Fairuza Balk’s character being the leader).

Now, by the time I saw The Craft, I had long forgotten all the specifics of The Worst Witch (I’m not even certain if I knew the actress’s name originally), so I made no connection. However, I later re-watched The Worst Witch for nostalgia and though “wow, that over-sized mouth looks very familiar…”. Then it clicked, first what other movie I had seen her in, then the fact that both movies were about witches. It kinda makes you wonder if it was pure coincidence, or if Fairuza Balk wanted to erase her previous “good girl” image, or perhaps simply do a tribute to her earlier movie.